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Division II passes SAAC proposals

Student-athletes get a vote on Management Council, Convention business session

January 18, 2015 12:38amRachel Stark

Division II delegates overwhelmingly passed two proposals at the business session that give Division II student-athletes a louder voice.

Each year at the Division II Management Council meeting that immediately follows the Convention business session, new members join the division’s primary advisory council.

But for the first time on Saturday, two of those fresh faces belonged to student-athletes.

Division II delegates overwhelmingly passed two proposals at the business session to give their student-athletes a louder voice in the legislative process that governs their division. The first proposal, providing two members of the division’s national Student-Athlete Advisory Committee two seats and one joint vote on the Management Council, passed with a 94.8 percent approval.

The second SAAC proposal provides the student representatives with one vote on each proposal at the Convention business session. It passed with a 95.8 percent vote and will give student-athletes their first vote at next year’s Convention.

John Galanoudis, a baseball player at Molloy College, explained to the crowd that he and the other members of SAAC feel their opinions are valued, but they believe the changes would “not only help enhance the student-athlete voice, but help grow the division as a whole.”

SAAC representative Francesca Ceppi, a tennis player at the University of Mount Olive, also asked the crowd for their support. “Nothing can replicate – both in practice and symbolically – one vote on behalf of student-athletes at the business session.”

All three divisions now have a student-athlete vote in the governance process. The legislation to provide seats on Management Council went into effect immediately, allowing SAAC’s chosen representatives — Katie Mnichowicz, a softball player at Upper Iowa University, and Deron Washington, a football player at Pittsburg State University — to sit at the table at the post-Convention council meeting.

“I get to see what goes on behind the scenes, and it’s been the best experience,” Mnichowicz told the rest of the council as the meeting came to an end. “I feel like royalty.”